36 replies to this topic

[ishwar]

Why not have dynamos attached to axles of vehicles?

Rotating motion + dynamo = electricity


Or maybe a new innovation to charge your cellphone battery while a machine sucks your fat away.

Or maybe a dynamo in your shoes.

Interesting possibilities, don't you think?

[Cerebral Stasis]

No.

The reason that there is no "free energy" isn't because we haven't looked, it's because it's theoretically impossible, as far as we currently know. Of course, as I said, it's in theory, so it may be possible though a means we haven't discovered yet.

I say "yet" because a company, Steorn, claims to have discovered a perpetual motion machine using magnets that has a 300% energy efficiency and the parts that it consists of never wear out. Now before someone scoffs and gives me a witty rebuttle that implies that with intelligence and gulliability being inversely proportional the latter is the the smaller in my case, first wait and see how it turns out. Steorn has nothing to gain from making such an ellaborate hoax (they have spent around a million dollars in advertising and many millions more in development of their "discovery", and with all that, they are NOT accepting any investments, which means they are only losing money on this, as far as can be seen). They have challenged a panel of 12 physicists, which will be chosen from some 3000 scientists that have offered their abilities, to view a demo of their invention and determine if their claims are true or false. If anything, I believe that they think they have found something. They may be mistaken and their creation may not work as they think it does, but I highly doubt that they are flat-out lying. In any case, keep an eye on the website and news and see how things turn out.

According to their website, there are three phases:

Phase I Current Phase: Confirm that the Steorn technology has a coefficient of performance greater than 100%.

Phase II Current Phase: Confirm that the operation of the Steorn technology does not affect the component parts of the technology.

Phase III Current Phase: Carry out a full thermodynamic analysis of the technology.

Remember, even the Law of Thermodynamics is just a theory. An extremely well-proven theory, but a theory nonetheless. It is possible that we could be mistaken, that the law doesn't apply in all cases, as previously suspected, or that the law is not actually being broken and the energy output is coming from a source that we are just currently unable to detect.

The company is currently not releasing the details while patents are pending. After all, if they DID figure out a way to make free energy that could power everything from cell phones to cars and never, EVER have to be refueled or recharged, there are lots of people who would jump to steal such a thing. They have to keep their interests in mind as a business as well.

Once again, I recommend that everyone hold off their skepticism until the results are published in a few months. State your opinions, but avoid being insulting with them, since none of us here are aware of the details of such a device, and so none of us can really say whether or not it is real. Personally, I would like to see it be true, but I must admit I think it's unlikely, however I will remain open-minded until the results are published.

Edited by Cerebral Stasis, 20 September 2006 - 08:41 PM.

[Albus Dumbledore]

the solution to having free energy would be to be able to controll Nuclear fusion in a contained area, which with todays tecnology is not possible

If scientists could figure out how to controll nuclear fusion, then the world would have an eternal source of energy and there would probably not even be a bill for the next thousand or so years.

For anyone who doesn't know what nuclear fusion is, it is when many nuclei come together and fuse together to form a greater nuclues, and when these nucleri are fused together it creates a massive amount of energy

just think of the sun and other stars when you think about nuclear fusion

[paperbag]

Cerebral Stasis, on Sep 20 2006, 08:40 PM, said:

No.

The reason that there is no "free energy" isn't because we haven't looked, it's because it's theoretically impossible, as far as we currently know. Of course, as I said, it's in theory, so it may be possible though a means we haven't discovered yet.

I say "yet" because a company, Steorn, claims to have discovered a perpetual motion machine using magnets that has a 300% energy efficiency and the parts that it consists of never wear out. Now before someone scoffs and gives me a witty rebuttle that implies that with intelligence and gulliability being inversely proportional the latter is the the smaller in my case, first wait and see how it turns out. Steorn has nothing to gain from making such an ellaborate hoax (they have spent around a million dollars in advertising and many millions more in development of their "discovery", and with all that, they are NOT accepting any investments, which means they are only losing money on this, as far as can be seen). They have challenged a panel of 12 physicists, which will be chosen from some 3000 scientists that have offered their abilities, to view a demo of their invention and determine if their claims are true or false. If anything, I believe that they think they have found something. They may be mistaken and their creation may not work as they think it does, but I highly doubt that they are flat-out lying. In any case, keep an eye on the website and news and see how things turn out.

According to their website, there are three phases:

Phase I Current Phase: Confirm that the Steorn technology has a coefficient of performance greater than 100%.

Phase II Current Phase: Confirm that the operation of the Steorn technology does not affect the component parts of the technology.

Phase III Current Phase: Carry out a full thermodynamic analysis of the technology.

Remember, even the Law of Thermodynamics is just a theory. An extremely well-proven theory, but a theory nonetheless. It is possible that we could be mistaken, that the law doesn't apply in all cases, as previously suspected, or that the law is not actually being broken and the energy output is coming from a source that we are just currently unable to detect.

The company is currently not releasing the details while patents are pending. After all, if they DID figure out a way to make free energy that could power everything from cell phones to cars and never, EVER have to be refueled or recharged, there are lots of people who would jump to steal such a thing. They have to keep their interests in mind as a business as well.

Once again, I recommend that everyone hold off their skepticism until the results are published in a few months. State your opinions, but avoid being insulting with them, since none of us here are aware of the details of such a device, and so none of us can really say whether or not it is real. Personally, I would like to see it be true, but I must admit I think it's unlikely, however I will remain open-minded until the results are published.

i think its great how u really know your stuff, i havent been a member but a maybe an hour, and pretty much everywhere i go you have some elaborate response, which i always find very interesting, magnets are pretty great

also, i checked out their website, i think they have something, and like you said, they have no reason to make it up

[Reaper]

the bottom line is that when it comes to energy it is really hard to create energy with out some form of machine or technology to do it. so that means that even if you get something that would create great amounts of energy or something like that is that somewhere along the line it will cost alot to buy or build this machine !!

So if you really look at it it might be a effective way to get energy but the cost to acutally make or build this equipment will always be subtabsile and therefore making that energy not "free" in the true sense of the word and the way people are talking about !

[Cerebral Stasis]

It's not even just about the cost. Fusion may create huge amounts of energy from a relatively small amount of fuel, but the efficiency at which that energy is harvested isn't 100% efficient. For example, in fission, the nuclear core heats water to the point of becoming steam, and that steam then turns a generator. It is the same general concept behind any fuel-based power plant, and the efficiency is reduced due to the converting of energy from one form to another (in this case, heat to mechanical). According to this website, nuclear power (that is, fission) is still the most efficient of all. Nuclear power gets around 90% efficiency, while fossil fuel plants get around 70% efficiency, natural gas ranges from 14-50% efficient, and wind/solar get anywhere from 15-30% efficiency. Keep in mind that efficiency means the amount of energy that is actually harnessed as electricity. It's easy to see why most places would prefer a single fossil fuel plant at 70% efficiency over a field of windmills, each being 20% efficient.

Of course, that kind of thing will change.

As for fusion, we currently do not have a form that is positively efficient, meaning that we don't get more energy out of the fuel that we put in, but when and if we do, it will be a very high-output power source. Of course even fusion wouldn't reach 100% efficiency, but considering the amount of power that is given out, it would still out-do all other power sources we currently have, once again, assuming we can make it positively efficient.

[dontmaimyourself]

The methods you suggested wouldn't create free energy, it's still just old fashioned energy transfer, while they are all very possible they would not create free energy, they would create energy however, and the dynamo-wheel suggestion is something I have wondered about for a while, I'm fairly sure some electric cars can indeed do this (correct me if I'm wrong) but it still requires more energy to be put in than is obtained through this process. The current hopes for clean energy are still very much old technology, all of which do not make energy. As already stated Nuclear Fusion is very very difficult to achieve in a controlled manner, and the steorn technology has not been tested. While it is theoretically possible to create 'free' energy (by means of fusion) the resultant heat output, i.e . the heat generated in stars, is not practical. And perpetual motion is just a ridiculous notion imho. I'm sure one day that 'free' energy will be a possibility I just doubt that we will be able to make real use of it in our lifetimes, i also fear that the breakthrough may come too late.

[salamangkero]

Albus Dumbledore, on Sep 21 2006, 06:24 AM, said:

the solution to having free energy would be to be able to controll Nuclear fusion in a contained area, which with todays tecnology is not possible

That should be interesting... imagine having earth's own private mini-sun, powering the cities around the globe. However, something as powerful as nuclear fusion still has its limits. Even stars can fuse elements only up to those as "heavy" as iron. Beyond that, the star begins to die (with blasts of great energy at moments but still dying) This means that even for a controlled nuclear fusion, we still have to refuel every few thousand years or so. Nonetheless, if such a feat were to be achieved, refueling will just be a minor expense compared to the energy output.

I also remember another alternative source of great energy: the fusion of matter and anti-matter. For example, when an electron collides with a proton, both are obliterated and transformed into a packet of energy, the arcane photon. I remember a physics professor of mine saying that finding anti-matter is not that hard; it is containing them that's tricky for they'd immediately begin disintegrating the container Scientists have, however, managed to contain anti-particles in magnetic fields although the generation of such fields obviously cost a lot of energy.

As it is, if we probably generated a field large enough to keep a substantial amount of anti-matter in control, we could possibly generate energy that may surpass that created from nuclear fusion. Oh, by the way, I think this is what powered the warp engines in the numerous Star Trek series

Again, it's not perpetual; I do tend to scoff with mild disbelief at any notion of "eternal" energy.

[ishwar]

No think about it , energy couldn't have come from nowhere, even in the universe.

[Cerebral Stasis]

As far as we know it cannot come from nowhere, and there is enough evidence that we could probably say that it is impossible for it to come from "nowhere." However, it may seem to come from nowhere by simply being diverted from a source that we are unaware of and/or are unable to detect. This is a crude example, but if there was a battery that was in another dimension and was unable to be felt/seen/detected, but when put into contact with wires, would be able to power a device by having electrons jump the interdimensional gap, it would appear as if the power was coming from nowhere, while there would be a perfectly logical source, just not one we could detect.

I'm not saying that the device proposed by Steorn is some kind of interdimensional battery, because it isn't, but my point is that there may be energy sources that are unable to be detected but can nevertheless be tapped, resulting in what would appear to be free energy.

As for antimatter, I wouldn't count on it. True, it would create large amounts of energy if one could combine matter and antimatter, but antimatter is extremely difficult and expensive to create. It's just not practical. According to this article, running at optimal production speed, it would take two billion years to produce one gram of antihydrogen. Also, as the article says, it is difficult to store. Magnetic storage would require gigantic amounts of energy, which would be extremely expensive, difficult, and dangerous to maintain.

With fusion, even if it could be used as a major power source for homes, it wouldn't solve every problem. A reactor small enough to fit in a vehicle would be extremely expensive and difficult to develop. Beyond that, one small enough to replace batteries would take decades upon decades of development. It's not the end-all cure to the energy crisis.